Your Hands
by CJ1027
Summary: This is a one-shot story of how James and Lily get together, starting from winter of 6th year and ending in winter of 7th year.


"Your hands are tough, but they are where mine belong in." -Taylor Swift

* * *

Winter

She's sitting by the fireplace with her hair up high, and for the first time her laugh seems genuine at something stupid that spilled out of my mouth in nervous but less haughty attempts to finally hear the sound. The smile reaches her eyes and suddenly I'm looking through an emerald kaleidoscope. I think she notices I stare for too long but she doesn't say anything. It's quiet and empty here because it's Christmas and people with families who are normal or aren't sick or are alive go home to spend time together and that's how we're stuck here, while Sirius sleeps for fifteen hours a day in his four-poster without a care in the world.

He knows and maybe even she knows but I'm awake almost the entire night after she offers a walk around the grounds. _Are you mental, Evans? It's winter, we'll freeze our arses off._ She unravels her scarf from her neck and throws it at me. _Didn't know the all powerful Potter was afraid of a bit of snow_ , she smiles, standing up. She tells me she's going with or without me, but I can tell by the way she lingers at the portrait hole that maybe, just maybe, she would rather go with me. So I wrap her scarf around my neck and I fake a sigh and say, _Alright, Evans, you win this round_ , and we walk around with an odd distance between us but at some point she throws a snow ball at me and by the time we get back to the castle it's dark out and her hair is covered in snow and my hands are red from the cold and for a mere moment she holds them in hers, before reluctantly letting them go and telling me to warm up with a smile and a tug at her scarf around my neck before heading up to her dormitory, but I don't think I've ever felt warmer.

* * *

Spring

 _I figured it out around third year_ , she confesses, slightly red in the cheeks, though her eyes are steady on my hands as she moves her wand over and over my palms. _You lot aren't too subtle about it, to be quite honest_ , she smiles, gently pressing her thumb on a ripe scrape. _Besides, Remus told me last year after OWLs and Sirius's—well, prank gone wrong on Severus. He figured I knew, anyway_. Of course she knew— I should never have really doubted it. But she does question how the three of us managed to stay alive if we were running around with him once a month. I knew maybe I shouldn't but I tell her our secret. Her jaw drops as she whispers hoarsely, _Unregistered animagus? But…but how?_ She seems appalled and impressed at the same time, the confliction of the two emotions spreading across her face. I laugh at her questioning and tell her maybe I'll show her some day. _Yeah, maybe,_ she agrees, her expression unreadable. _Are you sure you don't want to just go to Pomfrey?_ I refuse, telling her I've had enough of that woman for a lifetime and it's not that big of a deal ( _of course it's a big deal, you can barely move your hands!)_ and that I trust her more, anyway. She smiles slightly at that and continues to examine my hands, muttering some spells I don't quite know to heal the wounds. She threads her fingers through mine: _Full moon, or Quidditch?_ I tell her which is from what and I'm surprised at how intrigued she seems by the smallest spots on my hands, even the Quidditch callouses ( _Aren't you supposed to wear gloves for that?)_ but I explain to her that they hold me back sometimes, and after pointing out one particularly bad callous her hand doesn't leave mine for much longer than either of us must have been expecting. _Well, I did my best._ _I just hope you can play well tomorrow, still. Gotta kick some Slytherin arse, yeah?_ Her hand still doesn't leave mine, and so I take the opportunity to hold hers gently for a while and I tell her, _I'll bring back the Cup for you._ She doesn't let go until moments that feel like centuries later, with flushed cheeks and a gentle smile. _You better._

She starts calling me James.

* * *

Summer

 _We could meet in Diagon Alley…say, Saturday at 3? Don't be late._ I don't know what to make of it that she wants to see me even over the summer. I read her letter maybe forty times before it sinks in. I spend around two hours deciding what to wear because I don't know if this is a date or she's just being friendly or she just wants someone to buy her seventh year schoolbooks with or what to expect at all. I give in to the t-shirt and jeans attire out of frustration and hopelessness, hoping it won't make a difference. I get there at 2:30 just in case, terrified and excited yet questioning every feeling I have. _Don't get your hopes up_ is the mantra over and over again and I can't help but shake my leg when I sit down and pant around frantically every time I feel the urge to stand up. I sit down for a bit, calming myself down when she appears like a vision in yellow, every part of her brighter under the sun, her glow almost blinding me. Suddenly I am calm, all my nerves melting away by her warm hug, my mind utterly blank and I leave all inhibitions behind when I ask her as we walk aimlessly what we were doing here, why she wanted to see me.

 _I don't know,_ she shrugs, a gleam in her eye, _I missed you._

She says it casually, as if she was telling me about the weather or what she ate for breakfast, and then takes my hand.

My mind initiates a war, one side yelling at me to do something, make a move, ask her what the fuck she is doing…the other side is telling me to just go with it. I listen to the latter for most of the day, as we walk around, buy our books, as I drag her into the Quidditch shop despite her protests, as we sit outside and eat ice cream, laughing so hard our stomachs hurt. It's almost sunset and neither of us are leaving, and my face gets dangerously close to hers, and she looks at me sharply and then moves back away, and I listen to the other side of the war in my head and lose my cool. What are we doing, why are we here, what is she playing at, what is going on inside her fucking head? _I don't know, James! I…I should probably go._ I grab her arm and turn her around to face me again. The emerald in her eyes is absolutely stunning, and they are shining with tears, and I don't fucking care anymore and I grab her face with my free hand and crush my lips against hers as if I need her mouth to help me breathe, and chills erupt down my spine when she kisses me back as fiercely as I'm kissing her, and for a few unbelievable minutes I'm just filled with Lily.

She pulls away sometime later, breathlessly. We smile at each other. She reaches for my hand, squeezes it tightly, and whispers, _I…I'll see you soon, yeah?_

* * *

Autumn

September is filled with Lily pushing me against walls in abandoned corridors, kissing me over and over like it's what we were made to do. She pretends to scold me during our rounds together about abusing our power and disregarding our responsibilities, but after around two minutes of my convincing she lets me snog her until she finally shuts up. We stay up until 2am in the common room holding each other sometimes. There's not a topic under the sun we haven't covered, almost no secret left untold (except one). She cries about her sister, the war, school…and I don't let a single tear fall from her face to the floor. She makes the pain go away about family illnesses, about my anger, about everything.

For some reason I've agreed to have it this way, in secrecy, nothing established, nothing spoken about. All of our mates have it figured out, but they pretend they don't know a thing. Some nights I have a smile so wide on my face that it hurts because I'm so goddamn happy while I relive my stolen moments with Lily, thinking about how good it feels to talk to her, hold her, taste her, touch her. And some nights I lay awake cross and confused and upset because we basically have a relationship but it's forbidden to call it one and I feel invalidated and unwanted and I just can't understand her reasoning, her fear. We don't talk about it, and I feel like the most worthless Gryffindor there ever was when every time I want to bring it up the lump in my throat blocks the words from pouring out.

October comes and she's lying next to me on the floor near the lake at sunrise, everyone else still asleep, her hair matching the pile of leaves, laughing, holding my hand. _You know, I kind of like that your hands are rough from all that Quidditch,_ she confesses. I interlace my fingers with hers and find the courage inside of me to tell her something stupid, the only secret I have left: _I can't keep this up anymore, alright? I'm fucking in love with you, Lily, and if that's not enough then I can't…I—_ she interrupts me with a kiss that feels like fire. She smiles shyly. _Well, maybe I'm in love with you, too. Who would've thought, huh?_

* * *

Winter

She's wearing my jumper and boxers and giving me a look, but I can't take her seriously because all I can think about is how badly I want her. _You are a one track minded man, James Potter,_ but her mind is really on the same track as mine but she refuses to admit it half the time. I run my fingers through her hair, and she sighs sweetly, beaming. And a grin erupts on my face all too often because she is mine and I am hers and nothing could ever change that now. There's no going back. My favorite color will always be green and I'll never be able to sleep without her as comfortably and I'll never wear my Quidditch gloves again because of the way she traces my callouses and kisses them away. Sirius still can't believe it and neither can anyone or I really but none of it matters because it's real, she's real, we're real. I tell her in the dark late at night that she's my dream come true and she rolls her eyes, _You don't aim too high, then, do you?_ But then she kisses me slowly and robs my mind, before she says sincerely; _I love you, you cheesy git._ I give her a flower once a week just to get under her skin and live up to my "cheesy git" title, and she threatens to throw them out her dormitory window but I know she has a vase special next to her bed specifically for them. She drinks firewhiskey with me one cold January night and I have to hold her hair back while she cries over the toilet, _I hate you! You made me do this!_ And Sirius thinks it's the funniest thing in the world which somehow makes her more cross with _me_ , but the next morning when she wakes up she just wraps her arms around me like a lifeline to save her from the hangover misery.

She plays me a muggle record, her favorite Beatles one, and makes me dance with her and laughs when I wave my lanky limbs around like a prat. And I pull her close to me and kiss her and she tells me she's sorry she ever was afraid of this, of us.

She tells me she feels smoldered by my eyes and I laugh because _I think it's the other way around, love,_ but she insists that I'm just as beautiful as she is and it's a ridiculous notion that she sees me the way I see her, finally.

We sneak off to Hogsmeade in the snow even though we shouldn't because it's dangerous now and it's fucking freezing, and her lips are white and her nose is red, her eyes glossy from the wind, and she takes my hand in hers and squeezes it tight. She looks at me and sees my teeth chattering and she laughs softly, the most wonderful sound I've ever heard. She kisses me, and then her face is painted with a dazzling smile. _Don't worry, I'll keep you warm this time._


End file.
